The processes running in a data center, for example, are rapidly becoming more complex as a result of “virtualization.” While virtualizing is solving a myriad of computing problems, the practice is beginning to surface new issues unique to the practice of virtualized data centers having high-density. Further, as regulatory pressures require that data center configurations be certified and regularly re-certified, more and more complex data centers will rapidly overload an enterprise's ability to keep all configurations under control and certified for completeness.
Consider further that single virtual machines are not the end-game in a virtualized data center. Indeed, virtual networks of virtual machines will become more and more prevalent. Consider also an enterprise that has some 50,000 employees with the attendant problems of an email system that large. Rather than configure and maintain a data center with separate email servers, post office servers, IMAP and POP3 servers, SMTP gateways, etc., it would be far easier to have a layout of virtual machines, each caring for one aspect of the email system, linked together virtually and configured to act as the “email system.” Then, when the email system is deployed, each component is instantiated as per the “layout” with the data center personnel not worrying about where each virtual machine is located, how it is communicating with other email virtual machines, etc. Additionally, consider that certain applications of the email system are temporary or fleeting, according to policy, perhaps, and need not always be operational or have applicability in every scenario. For example, emails sometimes have attachments or links to applications in need of streaming media services. While it is important that the email system be able to support user's request for the streaming media services, the scenario practically only represents a limited service for users not needed upon every instance of receiving, sending or opening email.
Accordingly, a need exists in the art of data centers, for example, to eliminate inflexibility and cumbersomeness as future needs evolve the center. It further contemplates a paradigm of assemblies of virtual machines to service the functionality of the data center computing goal, or portions thereof. In turn, the paradigm needs robustness to support limited services, such as temporary or fleeting services, but without unduly complicating the application. As with many modern paradigms, such should also embrace governance scenarios and user identity awareness, while simultaneously enabling flexibility, integration with multiple applications and evolving technologies, and monitoring and noticing capabilities, to name a few. Naturally, any improvements along such lines should further contemplate good engineering practices, such as relative inexpensiveness, stability, ease of implementation, low complexity, security, unobtrusiveness, etc.